Heartland - Ōmarama

All our stock now is bulls or horses, so you know, you got a bit of an idea what you’re getting on at the start of the rodeo so you can psyche up or psyche out — whatever you wanna do.

– Corey Church talks about the rodeo

... it has devastated a lot of South America and also devastated the range lands in Canada, and is about to bugger the whole of the Montana area, which is similar sort of range lands to [what] we've got here. So it's the biggest problem weed in the world, is hieracium.

– Farmer Mike Thomas describes hieracium, also known as hawkweed

Well all men have their sport . . . basically they're all little boys at heart, men, I think.

– Sylvia Anderson on her husband's love of the rodeo

Has that ever seemed to you to be unfair sometimes?

– Gary McCormick asks local Kate Anderson how she feels about her brother eventually inheriting the family farm

...there's nothing wrong with tractors as long as you stay on 'em.

– Farmer Ginger Anderson

...now there's a new threat, the worst of all. This time the invader is a weed: hieracium, or hawkweed. It's of European origin, and it loves the place. Some say that if left unchecked, within a decade there'll be a desert between Canterbury and Northern Southland.

– Gary McCormick describes hieracium, also known as hawkweed

Rabbits are of course our number one problem — always have been. But we’ve had a big year this year and spent almost over $30,000 killing rabbits. My grandfather, who bought these places originally, he said that either we go or the rabbits go. And that’s still the fact today.

– Ginger Anderson on taking measures to kill pests on his farm

My grandfather John Anderson came here from Scotland before the turn of the century, so we sort of have our roots here of course.

– Ginger Anderson discusses his family’s history in Ōmarama

It is very hot in Ōmarama in the summer, which was, in my case, compounded by the fact that I was unknowingly developing glandular fever. As a result, there are parts of my stay that I cannot recall.

– Gary McCormick recalls making this episode, in 1994 tie-in book Heartland, page 182

I don't think that television does justice to the sheer power of an angry bull . . . In order to attempt to capture some of this in detail, the director (Bruce Morrison) decided we should venture into the arena itself and film the action as it happened at ground level. For some stupid reason, possibly the as-yet undiagnosed glandular fever, I went along...

– Gary McCormick on filming at the Ōmarama Rodeo, in 1994 tie-in book Heartland, page 184